The top three teams in each of the four divisions would qualify for the playoffs, with the last four spots going to wild-card teams — the two best records left over in each conference. Playoffs would be by division, not by conference as is now the case.

The plan still requires approval of the NHL Players’ Association and the league’s Board of Governors. If it clears those hurdles, it would go into effect next season.

And it would rectify some of the major problems existing now by (a) moving Detroit and Columbus from the Western Conference, where they never belonged, into the East; (b) rescuing Winnipeg from the Southeast Division and placing it with other Mid-West teams; and (c) moving Colorado from the Pacific to the Mid-West.

“It’d be unbelievable,” Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard said. “The travel takes years off of all our lives. ... That would be great for our fans, too, not having to stay up till all hours of the night to watch us.”

Another benefit would be to foster the Detroit-Toronto rivalry, which always was heated back in the day because of the proximity of the cities. It would also help Columbus develop a rivalry with Pittsburgh, with those cities being only 200 miles apart.

Even though Boston practically sits in the Atlantic Ocean, the Bruins would be in something called the Central Division. But it would be an exciting change because the Red Wings would be in the same division, and it would give the Bruins three Original Six rivals in the division (Wings, Canadiens, Maple Leafs).

During the regular season, each team would play teams in the other conference both home and away.

“I think it’ll work well,” Bruins forward Milan Lucic said. “I like that you play every team home and away.”

The NHL’s owners had voted to approve a realignment plan in December 2011 that kept Detroit and Columbus in the West, but the NHLPA shot it down. This time, the NHLPA was involved in devising the new plan.

No matter how well Tuukka Rask plays, it seems it’s not good enough for his detractors.

The Bruins goalie took a brilliant 7-0-1 streak into the weekend, allowing only 1.36 goals a game during that stretch. He is tied for first in the NHL with 11 wins, and ranks third in goals against average (1.82) and save percentage (.933).

But until he proves himself in the playoffs, he’ll be second-guessed, just as Tim Thomas was until his spectacular 2011 postseason run. Rask had an outstanding season the year that Thomas was suffering from a bum hip (2009-10), leading the NHL in GAA (1.97) and save percentage (.931), but he didn’t get Vezina Trophy consideration because he played in only 45 games.

Now, at 25, he is well beyond the young kid who did a pancake in the playoff series against Philadelphia when the Bruins blew a 3-0 series lead.

Fans forget that the Bruins’ collapse coincided with the loss of injured David Krejci, who had been a star up to then. All they remember is Rask’s 3.75 GAA in those four straight losses.

“He’s going to want to prove himself through a whole year, and not just a 20-game span or half a season,” coach Claude Julien said last week, insisting he has as much confidence in Rask as he did in Thomas. “He’s going to want to be solid from start to finish. I think that’s his challenge this year.”

The Bruins’ penalty-killing success is beginning to border on historic. They took a league-leading 93.9 percent success rate into yesterday’s game (62 kills in 66 times short), and they have been outscored by just one goal during four-on-five situations — they have given up three goals (the other was during a two-man disadvantage) and scored a pair short-handed.

It perhaps helps that the Bruins have been short-handed only 66 times, third fewest in the league, so that keeps their PK personnel fresh.

They also have some of the best at their craft in the NHL in Patrice Bergeron, Daniel Paille, Chris Kelly, Gregory Campbell, Brad Marchand and Rich Peverley up front, and Zdeno Chara, Dennis Seidenberg and Andrew Ference on the back line.

The Bruins also don’t get much time on the power play. They have had only 54 opportunities, fewest in the NHL, and have converted only seven of those, also the fewest in the league. Still, four teams have a worse success rate than Boston’s 13 percent.

It looks like you can forget about Michael Ryder, Daniel Briere or Daniel Alfredsson coming to the Bruins as help before the trade deadline.

Ryder, who would have looked great in his old No. 73 back on Boston’s third line, was traded from Dallas to the Montreal Canadiens, his original NHL employer, this past week.

Meanwhile, the Flyers reportedly got feelers from the Bruins and St. Louis about the availability of Briere, but the 35-year-old forward has a no-movement clause in his contract and intends to use it.

“I’ve been a Flyer for a long time,” Briere told the Philadelphia Daily News. “My heart belongs in Philadelphia with the Flyers. I can’t see myself playing anywhere else.”

Alfredsson, who was in Boston Thursday night with the Ottawa Senators, was the latest to squash the idea of coming to the Bruins.

“I understand there are going to be rumors,” he said. “But for me, my focus this year is with this team, especially where we’re continuing to get points, and get into the playoffs.

“I’ve been here so long, I can’t see anything else, but also I never say never. And don’t read anything into me saying that. I just feel that this is where I belong, and I’m having a lot of fun with the team, especially this year.”

That doesn’t necessarily leave the cupboard bare, though. There’s still a chance the Bruins could land any one of several available scorers, among them Calgary’s Jarome Iginla, Florida’s Stephen Weiss, San Jose’s Ryane Clowe, Philadelphia’s Ruslan Fedotenko, or a couple of unsigned restricted free agents, Detroit’s Valtteri Filppula and Colorado’s Ryan O’Reilly.

Ready for some great John Tavares numbers? When the Islanders’ flashy forward fails to get a point, the team is 0-7-1. Better still, Tavares (23 goals) and Matt Moulson (10) have combined for more goals than any other NHL linemates.

And the clincher: Tavares has been on the ice for 39 consecutive Moulson goals, assisting on 25 of them, and for 69 of 70 Moulson goals since November 2010.

Speaking of the Islanders, goalie Rick DiPietro — suffering from depression since falling out of favor and then being sent down to the AHL’s Bridgeport Sound Tigers on Feb. 23 after clearing waivers — insisted he was only joking when he told News 12 Long Island that he had considered suicide during the past three years.

Excuse me, but isn’t kidding about suicide in an interview with a television station just as sick as actually trying it?

DiPietro’s AHL debut on Friday night won’t help his state of mind. He gave up five goals on 12 shots in the first period against Connecticut and was replaced for the start of the second period.

Tyler Seguin’s goal total is down, but there’s nothing wrong with the way he’s playing. In fact, this might be the 21-year-old’s best two-way performance since he entered the NHL. His plus-13 rating is tops on the Bruins and second in the NHL.

“Right now, our team’s playing very well, and it’s fun to be a part of it,” Seguin said last week. “I think I’ve been doing well on backchecks and winning battles. It’s definitely something I’ve been stressing on myself, and it’s been stressed by other people, and I want to stay consistent with that.”

Seguin has been swarming around the net and playing some terrific defense. He prevented a goal against Florida by stick-handling the puck out of the crease after it came within a micrometer of the goal line.

“It’s been pretty impressive with the way he’s backchecked, the way he’s played defensively,” Julien said. “He’s made some nice plays. But also at the other end, things are starting to come around for him.

“He’s in those dirty spots in front of the net at times and battling. I think it’s just a matter of time (before he starts racking up goals).”

Julien made it clear that nobody is trying to turn Seguin into a Daniel Paille.

“The one thing I don’t want you guys to get confused about is that we don’t expect him to become a defensive player,” Julien said. “He’s a goal scorer, he’s an offensive player, and we want him to thrive in those areas.

“We drafted him for his offensive skills, so that’s got to continue. But as I’ve often said to young players coming in, ‘We’re not trying to change you, but if there’s certain things we can add to your game without subtracting, you’ll benefit by becoming a better player.’ ”

During their great start, the Chicago Blackhawks have earned 37 of a possible 40 points, giving them a point in their last 26 regular-season games dating to last March 25.

That’s the third-longest point streak in NHL history. Montreal is next at 28 games, while the Flyers have the longest at 35 games, both accomplished during a single season.

The Blackhawks’ success has come with an almost even split of the goaltending duties between Corey Crawford (9-0-3) and Ray Emery (8-0-0). Coach Joel Quenneville decided that both goalies would play in back-to-back games, and he stuck to his guns even in a 3-0 shutout of St. Louis on Wednesday.

Crawford started and played the first period, while Emery played the last two periods. Both goalies rank high in the NHL in stats. Crawford is first in GAA (1.46) and second in save percentage (.943), while Emery is tied for seventh at 1.92 and fifth at .931.

It’ll be interesting to see Chicago’s playoff plans in goal. Quenneville apparently knows what he’s doing. He has never had a losing season in 15 seasons as an NHL coach, and has made the playoffs 12 times with St. Louis, Colorado and Chicago.

Remember the grand design to increase scoring by wiping out the red line? It worked for one year, with teams averaging 3.08 goals during the 2005-06 season, which was a hike of 20 percent.

But the number has gone down steadily until reaching 2.73 goals a game last season — not much higher than the 2.57 figure during the last season with the red line (2003-04). The latest figures as of late last week were 2.69 goals per game, which was below the 2.71 for the same period last season.

Kevin Paul Dupont of The Boston Globe kicked around some ideas to boost scoring. The most reasonable seems to be increasing the size of the net from its current 4-by-6 feet. Another plan is to enforce icing even during penalty kills, and even penalize the short-handed teams that do it.

Other less popular ideas were to shrink goaltenders’ equipment, reduce the goalies’ stick size to that of a regular skater (or even eliminate the goalie’s stick entirely), or create a “key” area in the slot — perhaps 8-by-12 feet — where defensive players aren’t allowed unless the puck or an opposing player goes there first.

Count me in for the power-play icing rule, at least on a trial basis. It costs the least and can be scrapped if it fails its AHL test.

Proof that the Bruins’ power-play problems are all mental: Going into yesterday’s game, they were 0 for 26 with the extra man at home, where they clearly worry more about how they look than whether they score. They did score twice on the power play Saturday. On the road, they are 7 for 28 (25 percent), which actually ranks fifth in the NHL. ... Here’s a gem from the Elias Sports Bureau: The Bruins haven’t scored more than three goals in any of their last 32 games against the New York Rangers (shootout “goals” excluded). ... Now that Ference has shed many of his early-season struggles, maybe the Bruins should negotiate an extension before the 33-year-old defenseman’s contract expires after this season. Besides his value on the ice, Ference is an important locker room force. Remember, it was Ference who bought that Starter jacket that the Bruins passed around to game MVPs during their Stanley Cup playoff run, and he also put together that 20-link chain with padlock to symbolize the team’s togetherness that was so vital in 2011. All that is worth one more deal, especially since he sounds amenable to accepting a hometown discount.